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The Devil’s Rejects (2005) [REVIEW]

I know that I mentioned this movie a few months ago when talking about movies that remind me of summer, so why the fuck am I watching it now? Well, as you may remember, I reviewed House of 1000 Corpses recently, which is tolerable, but this movie is so much fucking better than that one, I felt the need to wash the taste of it out of my mouth. And considering I have reviewed the other three movies that Rob Zombie has done, generally saying they aren’t good, I figured he deserved some recognition with what he accomplished on this film. I guess I am just missing the reason why all of the nu-metal kids eat up everything he does like it’s gold, especially considering White Zombie hasn’t been popular for at least a decade. Maybe his stuff is just always on sale at Hot Topic or something? Or maybe Rob Zombie is the new Tim Burton? I am so out of touch with youth culture!

Captain Spaulding is just as scary without the make up as he is when it’s on.

When the home of the psycho freaks from the first film is raided by the police, Otis (Bill Moseley) and Baby (Sherri Moon Zombie) are the only ones to escape, while their mother, now played by Leslie Easterbrook, is taken into police custody. Otis and Baby contact their father, Captain Spaulding (Sid Haig), to meet them, and while waiting, the two of them terrorize, torment, and ultimately kill a family in a hotel room. With Mama Firefly in custody, we learn that the officer in charge of interrogating her, played by William Forsythe, has a personal vendetta against the family for killing his brother. He kills Mama Firefly furing the interrogation, and sets two bounty hunters loose of Otis, Baby, and Captain Spaulding. Once our murderers leave their motel, they seek refuge with an old friend, played by Ken Foree, who offers them salvation at his whore house. Unfortunately, this whore house is still within the reach of the bounty hunters, who apprehend these “Devil’s Rejects” and turns them into Forsythe. He then proceeds to torture them on behalf of all of their victims, leaving them for dead after setting their house on fire. Their behemoth of a brother who was able to avoid the initial police raid kills Forsythe, as well as frees Otis, Baby and Spaulding. As they hit the highway, things seem like they are going to work out, until they run into a police blockade. Realizing their fate, they charge into the blockade, guns blazing, as they are finally killed.

Ken Foree has an awesome line about horny robots bumping into each other and knocking shit over…it was pretty awesome.

I know I might have talked a little bit of shit on Zombie’s first movie, but I am so glad that his previous movie exists, because it’s what made Devil’s Rejects possible. It’s almost like Zombie went back, cut out everything about the first movie that didn’t work, took everything that was awesome about it, and doubled it. They took the most entertaining characters from the first movie and made the entire film about them. The characters that were added, like Ken Foree and William Forsythe, only heightened the whole movie and were a lot of fun to watch. They were able to flip back and forth between terrifying psychopaths and then say something clever and they became endearing again. Bill Moseley had all of the terror from the first film, but when those moments were juxtaposed with his “comedic” moments, they were what made the terrifying times all that scarier. Sid Haig was just as vulgar and disgusting as he was in the first movie, but this time we got more of him. Sherri Moon Zombie really made the character of “Baby” all her own, in that there is something almost innocent and endearing about her, as if she is a five year old in a grown woman’s body, but then switch right back into an annoying, irritating psychopath. The cast is really what makes this film stand out.

NO, BRIAN POSEHN! NOOOO!!!!!!

Rob Zombie’s music video style of filmmaking really peaked with this film as his combinations of music and visuals were done quite well. There are moments in the previous film and in his Halloween films where you can tell he just always wanted to use a specific song in a movie, but it never really felt forced in this movie. His use of the soundtrack really makes this movie feel like an authentic 1970’s splatter film with a lot more of a polished style and feel to it. And having the film end with hearing Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Freebird” almost to completion was a great way to end these characters for good. One thing about the movie that I don’t necessarily like is the fact that it feels like two short films, as opposed to one long one. When I watch all the stuff going on in the motel, which feels like almost the entire movie, I forgot what happened at the end. Or when we get to the second half and they are with Ken Foree, you completely forget how long we spent watching them physical and mentally torture people. This is what he did in his Halloween remake also, and it just feels weird and long (that’s what she said). If there was a smoother transition between the two parts of the film or maybe each segment was shortened a little bit, Mr. Zombie would have gotten my highest rating. Considering the ratings of the rest of his movies, this is still quite good, but the acclaim really belongs to the cast.